


Haunting

by kaeda



Series: Nature of Existence [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, General, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-20
Updated: 2006-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeda/pseuds/kaeda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marluxia is miffed that his death has inspired <i>philosophy</i>. Thus, he must go back to The World That Never Was and wreak havoc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunting

Marluxia sputtered.  There really was no other term for it; it was somewhere between a spit and a groan, and Larxene looked up from the book she was absorbing (the afterlife was pretty freaking amazing, she thought) to give him a suspicious look.

"What on earth is going on?" she asked in annoyance, hoping to finish the book before the local limbo volleyball match, which started later that evening.

"Our deaths," Marluxia began dryly, "are being _analyzed_."

"No way," she said with a bored tone, then returned her book.

"You don't understand.  I was the overlord of _Castle Oblivion_!  I was going to take them over, make the Organization my own, and they…they're just worried about their own existence."  The man was about to start indulging in a hissy fit now and Larxene was in no mood to deal with it, so she said the first thing that came to mind.

"Well, then, go down there and bitch them out."

When she looked up five minutes later and Marluxia was gone, she shrugged calmly and continued reading.

\---------------------------

Marluxia decided he was going to play with them.  All of them.  Until they fell to their knees and cried for mercy.  The most logical person to start with, then, was Axel, for the redhead had betrayed him in life, and if there was one thing Marluxia enjoyed more than gardening, it was revenge.

Unfortunately, it was Demyx who Marluxia ran into first.

Even more unfortunately, Marluxia was not invisible like he'd first thought he would be.

"M-Marluxia?" Demyx stammered, skidding to a stop right outside the Proof of Existence.  He almost dropped his sitar in surprise, but remembered just in time and clutched it protectively to his chest.  "You're supposed to be _dead_!"

Marluxia was in no mood for nonsense, so he cut to the chase.  "I'm haunting you."

Demyx's eyes lit up and the dead man wondered if perhaps this was the wrong thing to say, because now Number IX looked like a kid in a candy store. 

"Axel was right!  We _do_ continue after death!" he said gleefully.

Marluxia began to glower.  Axel!  That ass!

Demyx, completely oblivious to the anger rolling off his colleague, continued, "and so we _must_ have hearts, and if you can haunt that means that you're dead and yet you're probably going to be reincarnated, right?  And then we can all live happily ever after in our next lives and maybe even the _Superior_ will join us!"  Marluxia forgot all about his anger and just _stared_ at Demyx.

"Uh, I guess?"

Demyx plowed forward, "oh, I have to tell the others!" and then he was gone, running faster than light back into the castle, leaving a pink-haired slightly translucent ghost staring after him with his mouth open in a silent 'o'.  He realized he looked like a fish and closed his mouth.

Moments later, he remembered his original objective.  Revenge!  He continued into the castle, resisting the urge to damage some property while he was at it.  The Superior, that asshole, would've probably just snapped his fingers and fixed it anyway.  Marluxia got much more enjoyment out of manipulation.  The more the living members of Organization XIII were at each others's throats, the better for him.

Unfortunately, the next person he ran into wasn't Axel at all, but rather the little blond Nobody of that Sora kid.  Suddenly revenge sounded even sweeter to Marluxia, because Sora had _killed_ him, and Roxas had always been a cold bastard anyway.  He grinned wickedly and summoned his scythe.

Roxas spotted him at that moment and turned to glare at him.

"So you're what's got Demyx so worked up," he said quietly.

"I should kill you, you brat," Marluxia menaced, but the kid didn't even seem intimidated.  Marluxia remembered that he was friends with Axel and mused that after being charred daily, nothing probably scared him anymore.  "You and those _keyblades_…"

"Is there a problem?" and Axel was right there, smirking at him like not a day had gone by, and Marluxia wanted to shove his scythe right in that smug face.  He was about to do so when Demyx came plowing down the corridor, followed by Xigbar and Xaldin.

"And Marluxia is _here_," he was telling the other two when they noticed the three up ahead.  Numbers II and III stopped and froze, but Demyx had no sense of self-preservation and marched straight up to the pink-haired Nobody.  "There you are!"

Marluxia growled.

Axel smirked again.

Demyx looked between them and asked, "Have you thought about what you're going to be reborn as?"  Marluxia turned and stared at him again.  This was the second time since he'd come down that the kid had startled him into forgetting revenge.  What on earth?

"Ignore him, he's having a crisis of faith," Axel said.  He and Roxas had moved side by side, both inherently sensing the danger of having a crazy, rampantly gay ghost after them, and their unified front was something that made Marluxia a little nervous.  VIII and XIII had gotten closer since his death.

Demyx continued as if Axel hadn't said anything.  "I think Larxene should be reborn as a librarian and you should become a gardener.  It's like the things you love to do, only this time you'll have hearts and you'll be able to just enjoy doing that."  If Marluxia were any other sort of ghost, he would have been charmed, but being the man that he was, he was mostly just annoyed that his revenge was being interrupted.

"Can you even touch us, since you're see-through?  Can I walk through you?"  This, of course, was Axel, and then he got a decidedly wicked look on his face, and Marluxia had a sinking feeling of foreboding.  Before the redhead could take even a step forward, however, Roxas stepped on his foot.

"No."

"But…" Axel began to whine.

"No.  You are not walking through Number XI, not even to see what it feels like."

Xigbar and Xaldin were regarding him solemnly, like he was some sort of curious lab experiment, and Demyx still looked on the cracked side of crazy, although he'd calmed a little. 

"I think it would be kind of fun to try being reborn as an animal, but of course it might be annoying as well.  You wouldn't have any memories and what if I was reborn as like a mouse and then you guys were all cats?  You'd want to _eat_ me."  Demyx seemed truly troubled by this line of reasoning.

From the look on Axel's face, the only thing that was keeping him from trying to walk through Marluxia was Roxas's small hand touching his arm, but apparently that was enough.  Marluxia watched their interaction out of the corner of his eye and wondered if the afterlife had softened him a bit.  For a few seconds, his plan to turn them all against each other seemed too cruel.  The first seeds of camaderie had finally been sewn between the remaining members of the Organization; he could see it in the way that Demyx carried on, the way that Axel and Roxas leaned back to back, the way that Xigbar and Xaldin both watched, amused, when before they would have left in separate directions, aloof and disinterested.  Marluxia began to wonder.

If the members of the Organization had always been this close, this comfortable with one another, would he have been tempted to stage a coup?  The links between the five living people in the hall were not quite friendly, but there was caring there, and compassion.

Suddenly, he wondered if perhaps he shouldn't have come back.

"Well?" Axel taunted.  "Are you going to haunt us?  Leave incriminating evidence that someone else is betraying the Organization?  I love to deal with traitors."  His grin was positively feral and Marluxia swore that he saw fire lick the man's fingertips.  Roxas had gone slightly paler, as if something in Axel's words scared him.

The last time he'd saw the look reflecting from the kid's eyes, he'd been looking in a mirror.  Number XIII was disillusioned, tired of taking the Superior's orders blindly without question, ready to become something _more_.  With sinking certainty, Marluxia realized he didn't even have to turn them all against one another; the Organization was falling apart, even with the companionship beginning to form, and his revenge would be complete soon enough.  It was obvious that Axel was in love with Roxas, and when Roxas left and Axel was forced to hunt him down and destroy him…it would be worse than any punishment Marluxia could think of in his darkest dreams.

During this inner monologue, Demyx had started babbling again.  "I was thinking maybe I'd become a musician again, but maybe I'd branch out for a change.  It might be fun to do something truly vicious, like telemarketing.  Or I could learn to be a pilot.  It would be fun to fly gummi ships, don't you think?"

Marluxia decided it was about time to gracefully exit.  He started back down the hall and was almost to the door when he heard footsteps running behind him and then the most peculiar sensation of being stepped _through_ occurred.  Thinking it was Axel, he was about to make a blistering comment when a short blond figure skidded to a stop in front of him.

"Hey!" a familiar voice yelled from farther away.  "_I_ wanted to do that!"

Determined blue eyes looked up at him.  "What made you betray them?" Roxas demanded.

He was silent for a moment, thinking.  The boy kept staring, like if he tried hard enough, he could get through to Marluxia's soul.  Finally, Marluxia answered.

"The Superior was an annoying son of a bitch.  I could have run things better.  We could have achieved Kingdom Hearts much faster with both Keyblade Wielders on our side."  Marluxia had a suspicion that they hadn't told Roxas the story of Sora; it was confirmed when the boy's eyes narrowed to slits.  
          
"_Both_ Keyblade Wielders?" he asked dangerously.  
          
"The Superior keeps a lot of secrets hidden from you," Marluxia sneered.  "He could care less about any of you."

"I don't know who I am."  The way Roxas said that made Marluxia feel as though it was the worst fate a person could suffer through.  Maybe it was.  Marluxia himself had never had that problem.

"You can't rely on the Superior to help you find out.  He already knows who you are, and he's never going to tell you, because you're his precious Keyblade Wielder and thus you're worth manipulating.  Don't let Axel's naivety overshadow your judgment," Marluxia warned, wondering briefly why he was bothering to give advice to this kid.

He felt bad for disillusioned Nobodies, maybe.

"I have to go find out on my own," Roxas said quietly.  "That would make me a traitor."

"Axel would have to deal with you."

A brief flicker of pain went through those eyes, but was quickly squished down.  Defiance, and anger, replaced it.

"I can take him."  Marluxia had no doubt that this was true, and, knowing the damage was done without him intentionally starting it in the first place, felt that his revenge would be complete.

He continued out, leaving Roxas staring after him.

\----------------------------

"How were our old friends?  Did you start any wars?" Larxene asked.  Remembering the easy camaderie of their colleagues at the castle, Marluxia ignored the urge to snap at her and instead sat next to her on the couch.

"Larxene."

"Hmm?"  She finally looked up from the book she'd been reading (a different one from before, of course).

"I think we should be reborn together," he said.  It was ridiculous and sappy, and she was going to laugh in his face, but he was starting to feel as though they should make an effort to stick together as well, have another chance.  He almost felt like he could call her a _friend_, if he tried hard enough.

She was staring at him in the same sort of way he'd been staring at Demyx, mouth agape.  "Are you serious?"

He made a disgruntled face.  "Of course.  If the Superior ends up reborn with us, who else is going to help me take him?"  She smiled indulgently, vaguely aware that this half-living state they were in was almost over, and that she would indeed miss his fruity, pink-haired company.

"Okay," she said.  "When we go to our hearings, I'll ask to be reborn with you."

"Hopefully karma isn't as much of a bitch as they say, or we'll both be cockroaches," Marluxia added, and Larxene laughed for the first time in ages, startling them both.  Suddenly, the lonely existence of revenge and rebirth wasn't so lonely after all.

\-----------------------------------

The cocky redhead caught up with his friends.  They were sitting on the beach and for all intents and purposes they appeared to be gossiping, the blonde girl leaning back and smiling up at the sky, the magenta-haired man seated beside her trying to look dignified and failing miserably.

"I haven't seen him," the redhead said forlornly.

"You'll find him," the other man told him.  "You just aren't looking hard enough."

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is totally just crack. I'm not trying to make any sort of religious statement or anything, although I do assume that since KH is made in Japan and 84% of Japanese people believe in both Buddhism and Shintoism (my Japanese teacher like, rammed this into our skulls this term), these guys probably do believe in reincarnation. All in good fun!


End file.
